The Filson's Virtual Card Catalog
The Filson's Card Catalog in the 21st Century: From Card Stock to Computer Screens
By: Suzanne Maggard
Special Collections Assistant
Researchers come from across the country and from around the world to search The Filson Historical Society’s Special Collections for letters, business records, genealogical information and other manuscript material. Many of them have traveled to other archives, and have grown accustomed to having to search through boxes of papers for any information relating to their topics of interest. Most of them are surprised and excited to find that they do not have to do this at The Filson. Our card catalog, which in most libraries and archives would simply be a relic of the past, is a wonderful resource that contains detailed records for even our most recently cataloged collections. The Special Collection’s card catalog is such a unique and valuable search tool that for over a year, the staff in The Filson’s Special Collections department has been working to create a web site, which would allow researchers access to our card catalog online. In Jan. 2008, Special Collections launched a test version of the “Virtual Card Catalog,” a new web site that allows researchers to search The Filson’s manuscripts in more detail than previously available outside of The Filson’s facilities.
The Filson’s card catalog is a unique resource in the archival world today. Many other archives create two records for their archival collections: a finding aid, which provides an overview of the collection with a listing of the boxes or folders, and an entry for their online catalog. Since they simply have a list of folders or possible subjects contained in the collection, researchers are often forced to search through boxes of manuscript material to find those few items that will assist them with their studies. In contrast, The Filson’s Special Collections staff creates three records for each collection. Like other archives we create a finding aid, and a record for our online catalog, but we also create catalog cards. Our catalog cards provide details on the material in each folder and sometimes even each letter in a collection. We create cards for the many subjects addressed in the collection, people mentioned in the collection and the time period of the collection. Researchers can often go directly to the folder that holds the item or items that they are looking for, saving them valuable time and energy.
Yet, in the 21st century, it is not enough to have this wonderful resource only available onsite. Historians, students and genealogists have grown accustomed to having access to all types of information on the Internet, and The Filson has begun to feel the pressure to make more of their resources available online. To solve this problem, we devised our “Virtual Card Catalog,” which allows researchers to search both our card catalog and our finding aids. Researchers can access the Virtual Card Catalog through a link on The Filson’s homepage or at the following URL: http://www.filsonhistorical.org//virtual_card_catalog/index.html
This test version of the Virtual Card Catalog contains only 82 of our archival collections, but the goal of the site is to allow researchers to try this new resource for themselves, and provide Special Collections staff with feedback. The full site will be launched at a later date. Even though it is a test version, the Virtual Card Catalog allows our researchers to search these 82 archival collections by keyword or browse by subject, a person’s name or by the title of the collection. To search the Virtual Card Catalog, click on the links on the menu bar at the top. If a researcher knows the specific topic that they are looking for, the quickest way to search may be performing a keyword search for that topic. If the researcher is not quite sure what search term to use or has several different topics that he or she is interested in, they may want to peruse our subject, people or collection browse lists.
Whichever method a researcher chooses to use, when he or she clicks on the title of the collection, they will be shown the finding aid for that collection. The finding aid provides an overview of the collection as a whole, as well as information on the authors of the collection, the scope of the collection, biographical and historical
information, index terms, and a folder list. The index terms section is probably the 
most helpful and unique section of our finding aids. It contains all the subject headings for the collection and links to the catalog cards. The researcher simply needs to click on “View Catalog Cards” to see the same catalog cards for the collection that they would find in our card catalog. This will provide them with detailed information on what they will find in the collection pertaining to each subject in which they are interested.
Special Collections staff members hope that researchers will find the Virtual Card Catalog an invaluable tool. We have many plans to expand this site in the future, and hope that someday all the information in our card catalog will be available through “The Virtual Card Catalog.” We would appreciate your comments and suggestions for ways that we can make the site better. Please email your comments to Suzanne
Maggard at maggard@filsonhistorical.org/
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The Filson Historical Society
1310 South Third Street - Louisville, KY 40208
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